


Spectrum of Change

by Siguna



Series: A Memory of Light [2]
Category: Hellboy (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, Jotun!Loki, Jotunheimr, Loki Silvertongue, M/M, Nuada Silverlance, Álfheimr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-17
Updated: 2013-10-14
Packaged: 2017-11-25 20:42:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/642774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siguna/pseuds/Siguna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything is different and nothing is clear. Loki is nothing if not wary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Once, Loki had been stripped down to his (true) skin and tossed into a dungeon to waste away. Where he would be, or if he would be, where it not for the elf lying now at his side, he does not know. It is a strange thing to grow used to, this thudding ache in his chest that growls contentedly when Nuada presses up against him. Strange as the eagerness in the hands Nuada puts on his cold Jotun skin, or the appraising glint in his eye, or the exulting whisper of his voice through the darkness. 

When Loki flits his eyes down to look at the mass of pale hair splayed over his chest, he feels himself recoil on the inside. His blue fingers creep into the depths of Nuada’s hair and he curls them into it, tentatively at first, then yanks up Nuada’s head. 

Nuada jolts from his sleep, white lids lifting to reveal a questioning golden gaze. Loki stares at him, unmoving. Then he lets go and slips out from beneath Nuada and off the bed. 

If Asgard spends the next few days murmuring in alarm about something horned and blue skulking around the suddenly frozen fountains in the royal garden, no one from Válaskjalf pays any heed.

The fountains are completely iced over when Loki next strolls into his bedchamber. Nuada is tinkering with something from which he looks up. Loki holds his hands carefully at his sides, head tilted back with the new weight it carries, and walks over to look at what Nuada is holding. 

Nuada sets it down. Loki wants to ask, what are you still doing here?

When Nuada arranges Loki’s head and horns carefully into the pillows then crashes onto him and grates his teeth and nails over Loki’s skin, a continual hiss catches in Loki’s throat and his red eyes fling back wide. Fixing on the ceiling while his body grinds up against Nuada’s.

He wakes to find Nuada lying in a patch of sun under the window, fingers working at something held above him. The room is dark because Loki keeps it so, bereft of lantern or light. So Nuada gravitates to the window. “You’re in my light,” Nuada sighs when a block of shadow falls over him, and tilts his head back to glance up at the frowning face of Thor.

“And you’re in my home,” Thor says. Nuada faintly snorts. “Elf,” Thor rumbles at him. Nuada turns the object thoughtfully in his hands. “I demand to know what you and my brother are planning,” Thor says. Nuada extends his arm out to catch his object in the light.

He flinches slightly when Mjölnir smashes into it and sends pieces flying. He blinks as Thor’s arm then crusts over with thick, glittering ice.

Thor storms out and Loki sinks back onto his bed, exhausted though he just woke. Jagged chunks of frost shoot up around him and climb and weave until he’s enclosed within. He buries his head into his pillow and coughs for a long time, throat burning with blood that spurts from his mouth and stains his sheets. He turns onto his back and heaves at the air. Everything hurts. 

Outside the ice Nuada calls to him. 

“Why are you still here,” Loki gripes, voice equally tired and angry. He’s not sure at what but it hardly matters. “You expect me to leave.” It’s not quite a question. Loki sits up with some effort, head throbbing at the base of his horns. “Whatever happened to going to Alfheimr. To leaving here?” Nuada’s voice is low when he responds, after a pause, “I would have you in better health for the journey.” Loki barks out a chipped laugh and drops back into his bloody sheets. “Would you.” 

He can see the dark streak of Nuada’s form shift away from the ice, retreating with a bitten “Let me know when you’re done sulking.” 

When Loki does fade his ice Nuada is not in the room. Unsurprised, he seeks him out and finds him in the forges. Shirtless but for an apron, sweating, hammer in hand. Loki is in little more than leggings and cloak, having lost all taste for excess layers in this – in his true form. He grimaces at the heat here but steps inside.

Nuada glances at him. “Feeling better?” He swings methodically, pounding at something. Loki watches the stretch of his bicep. “This is – new to me.” He hunches in his cloak. “And do you think I go around doing this often?” Nuada asks without missing a beat. Loki’s shoulders drop then bunch up again. “That’s – not what I meant.”

Nuada puts down the hammer and looks at him. “I sought this out. I sought you. But I have only so much patience.” 

Loki tugs Nuada into his bed at night and folds himself into bone-white limbs, and it’s not like that first time, when it had seemed that the world was Nuada and Loki wanted for nothing else. There is more on his mind, now. It’s far less easy to bare himself that way. But he presses Nuada closer and doesn’t want to let him go, and doesn’t fully understand why.

What he knows is that the thought of being without Nuada is a bleak one. “Don’t leave,” Loki says, hanging over Nuada, hands planted on either side of him. It is a simple expression of what he wants, not a request nor demand though he shapes it as one. His chest drips sweat onto Nuada’s and he breathes hard. 

“Stop expecting me to,” Nuada tells him. He twists their fingers together and pulls Loki down. 

Thor, taken to spending more time than usual away hunting, returns from his latest trip and holds one of his feasts as usually follow such an excursion. Loki, long stranger to the feasting hall, makes his entrance mid-meal. Nuada is on his arm. They drop down beside Frigga and Nuada leans into him.

The hall buzzes and gapes. Loki idly wonders how much of the whispering has to do with him and Nuada and how much revolves around the word _Jotun_. He’s surprised himself that he’s been left alone thus far, but then again he has been keeping out of sight. The thought makes him frown – he wonders suddenly if he was thought to be afraid to be out among them.

But Nuada turns away from exchanging words with Frigga to nudge at the underside of Loki’s jaw and Loki duly turns his focus to him. He’s vaguely aware of the whispering picking up again, punctuated with gasps and headshakes. But Loki has reserve only for Frigga. He runs a hand over Nuada’s cheek and they settle down. When Loki casts a glance at Odin it is to find him staring straight ahead, expression unreadable, deliberately oblivious to them and to Thor purpling beside him. 

Loki’s eyes narrow. He murmurs to Nuada, who takes a look and smirks and tells him not to worry.

Thor intercepts them when they’re retreating back to Loki’s chamber. “How dare you,” he demands, puffed out and red-faced. Loki almost wants to drive a pin into his head to see if it will deflate. Thor sways on his feet, obviously drunk and all the angrier for it. “You two – you have the nerve – after all you’ve done, Loki – and to show yourself in front of all of Asgard, looking like this –”

Thor’s feet are knocked out from under him before Loki can react. He sputters on the ground and Nuada stands over him, wearing an expression of calm disgust. He looks for a moment as if he might say something, but all he does is press into Loki’s shoulder and turn them away. 

“Were he not so drunk,” Loki begins as they head down the hall. “I can hold my own against even the god of thunder, dear prince,” Nuada tells him.

They walk in silence after that, but once inside the chamber Nuada takes Loki by the shoulders. “You’re not upset by what the thunder dolt said?”

“No,” Loki says, startled. “Thor is a fool and – just, no.”

“Then what’s the matter?”

Loki startles again. “What makes you think – ?”

“My prince,” Nuada starts, then pauses, tilting his head. “There, again.” 

“There again what?” Loki demands and he’s perplexed, at this and at the way Nuada is always _reading_ him, always seems to be a step ahead. 

Nuada slips his hands up around Loki’s head, pulling it down against the natural inclination it takes because of the horns. Loki’s head is constantly tipped back with the weight of them, his face uplifted and Nuada tells him this is how it should be. Now he draws Loki’s forehead to his. “You don’t like it when I call you ‘prince’.”

It is no question and Loki doesn’t try to treat it as one. “A puppet prince of Asgard is all I am,” he says through grit teeth, laying hands over Nuada’s. “A stolen prize, a pawn in a game Odin plays. Never considered an heir to the throne of Asgard, never taken seriously for what brief time I had it –”

“Loki – ”

“Never truly accepted as a son of Odin, even before everything, not by Odin himself, nor anyone save Frigga and that stupid blond sack of beard. As if he had half the brain to know any better – ”

“Loki, calm down,” Nuada says, bracing him by the shoulders and Loki realizes how he’s shaking. His head settles back into its tilt and a hiss slides through his teeth. “Even Thor is repulsed by my Jotun form.” His voice drops, quieter but still venomous. “The title is a mockery, Nuada, as am I among these people. Abhorred as a monster. They would see me skinned, de-horned and bled to my death if Odin would but give them reign to do so. I am no prince of theirs – have hardly ever been.”

He waits for Nuada to say something. Nuada doesn’t right away, but leads him to the bed and sits him down. “Firstly,” he says, golden eyes wide and boring into Loki’s, “you are prince of _mine_ if of no one else. This, all shall know and all shall reckon with. As for Odin – he knew not what he brought upon himself when he took you from Jotunheimr, and now sits helpless as to how to deal with it, while his realm grovels in the backwardness for which it has him to thank. This – blind hatred of that of which they know nothing. They know _nothing_ , Loki. And you little more than them, of who and what the Jotun are.” He sounds near as angry as Loki had just been, but Nuada’s anger is a controlled one, controlled and – purposeful. Loki’s mouth opens and closes a few times but he only ponders silently at Nuada’s words. 

“It is the same way my people have been treated – by the humans, by others.” Nuada’s voice takes on a steeled edge and Loki leans in, intent, for Nuada has not spoken of this before and Loki finds he desperately wants to _know_. “Our realm flows into Midgard as you know, and my father, he would have had generations of Elven warriors hid meekly away and let the humans trample on our land and our kind unchecked. For fear of what? I do not court war, but nor do I cower from it.”

“King Balor feared the humans?” Loki can’t hide the surprise from his voice. Nuada grimaces. “Feared them? Feared for them? Or feared the idea of war altogether? I cannot tell anymore. He was even more mindless a ruler than Odin, and because of him Alfheimr goes to ruin.”

“Nuada, I knew not of this,” Loki says, reaching for him. He draws Nuada close and that same, old bud of anger and hate and the need to do something about it all uncurls inside him. “How could you though,” Nuada says against his neck. He pulls up to nudge his lips against Loki’s jaw, soft but urgent and they both draw comfort from it. Loki closes his eyes and wraps an arm around Nuada’s head, arching into him. “Asgard’s walls are strong and keep its people sheltered from more than you might think,” Nuada murmurs, shifting back to Loki’s neck. He burrows into the cold of Loki’s skin and it sets Loki reeling, as ever, how Nuada delights in it. “What does any Asgardian know of what troubles befall the other realms? For all their king lords over all nine of them,” Nuada murmurs plaintively. He mouths at Loki’s neck in between the words and eventually pulls him down so that he’s on his back. Loki sips at the air and curls his hands into Nuada’s hair as Nuada settles on top of him and sets to the clasps of his cloak.

“I wouldn’t have you prince of Asgard, in any case,” Nuada says, sitting back over Loki’s thighs and glancing up at him, his pale hands spread over Loki’s chest. “But you were born a prince, Odin or no Odin, and it’s here for all the world to see,” and he reaches one hand to Loki’s forehead and traces the raised markings on his skin. Loki feels his mouth quiver and he brings a hand up to touch his forehead as well, staring at Nuada. “I take it they don’t teach you about Jotun runes on Asgard,” Nuada says, arching forward to run his lips over the markings. “This one is a sign of your royal lineage, Jotun prince.” Loki’s chest is thumping now, and a shudder runs through him at the damp heat of Nuada’s mouth on his brow. At the same time, another pang of frustration at how little he knows of the Jotun shoots through him. But also the remembrance of something else. “You too,” he breathes suddenly, and Nuada, mouth at the corner of Loki’s, lifts his eyelids to glance up at him. “This scar,” Loki says, running a thumb over the one that runs from cheek to cheek across Nuada’s face. “A royal mark. I remember.”

“That they did teach you,” Nuada nods with a small smile. “And what a lot of good my lineage does me.” 

“Oh, it will,” Loki says, tugging him closer with an arm around his neck. “Together we’ll restore to Alfheim its honor.”

“And to Jotunheimr,” Nuada adds determinedly. “You will sit the throne that was meant for you, Loki.”

Loki has never thought about the Jotun throne – has ever found it difficult to assimilate to the idea of being Jotun, after centuries of being taught to shun them. Even after enough has happened to diminish his regard for Asgard’s teachings, still he has struggled, more than anything with the sheer frustration of it. 

He looks at it a little bit differently now. “And you will claim your own,” Loki murmurs over Nuada’s ear, before pulling him down to find his mouth.

They speak no more after that, and when Loki drifts into sleep it is with Nuada’s arm curled round his throat and much on his mind. Ever has Loki operated alone – plotted and planned and struggled and sought many things, and gone to great and arduous lengths to get them, and fallen and been broken enough times to match. Now when he thinks on the future every step is alongside Nuada, cannot be any other way and oh, but there is much he sees the easier for it. The closer, the greater. He thinks on the Jotun throne and his breath catches, even as sleep draws him into its depths. It is all too clear. 

Loki wakes with renewed vigor on the morning and turns to Nuada with eager hands and eyes, and finds him dripping blood. And what Nuada says, voice low and strained, is “I’m sorry my prince, I must away to Alfheimr at once.”  


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long hiatus, but this is finally back and kicking. This chapter concludes part two and part three should come soon. It's so good to be writing these two again.

Loki feels his breath pull in and hears little of what Nuada says, head jerking around rapidly to catch sight of a perpetrator even as his hands conjure a cloth to blot at the stark red staining bone-white skin. The chamber is void of anyone but them, and well it should be for Loki has enchantments on the door, windows; so how – ?

“It’s only a nosebleed,” Nuada says faintly, one pale hand closing over Loki’s now red-dripping one. Loki says nothing, only tips Nuada’s head back and presses down with the cloth. It gives his hands something to do, steadies them as he steadies his breathing. He sits up straighter, composed. It was only a moment of shock – one moment caught off guard as he woke.

 “I must go back,” Nuada says, touching Loki’s cheek. Loki blinks and his brow furrows. “What has happened?”

 “Nuala,” Nuada tells him, “something’s happened to her.” And, of course, Loki knows of this, the unique link Nuada shares with his twin sister wherein what injury befalls one so befalls the other. “So we will go,” he says, slipping away from Nuada and making to rise. A quick hand catches him around the waist. “The journey is long, Loki, your state – ”

“I’ll be the judge of that, and I wish you wouldn’t – ” Loki grimaces, turning to him and grabbing away his hand. “In any case, you forget how I usually travel. We must be at Alfheim in haste and the journey would be too long, as you say.” He holds the gaze of golden eyes as realization creeps into them and Nuada sits up, tossing the bloodied cloth from his face. “I would not ask such a thing of you. Not when – ”

And then he stops, and Loki appreciates it.

“You need not ask when I offer, and I’ll offer as I please,” he says quietly, reaching for Nuada’s hand. They rise together, standing face to face for a moment, then Loki wraps his arm close around Nuada’s waist, pulling him in and pulling them both out into the darkness of the void between the worlds.

The landing is not so graceful as Loki would have liked. Nuada manages to make footing and catches at Loki’s waist as he comes clattering down at his side, heaving for breath, forehead beading with sweat. “My prince, are you well?” Loki sways against him, thrilling slightly, shying slightly at the undisguised anxiety in Nuada’s voice and grateful concern etched into his expression. “Loki?” Nuada prompts, soft, nudging at his chin. It occurs to Loki then that he’d better respond. “Yes – yes.” His head feels ready to split. “Are we – ?”

“We have made it to Alfheimr yes,” and Nuada sounds distracted but smiles. “Can you walk?”

“Yes.” Loki pushes away from him, takes a step to prove it. Nuada wraps an arm back around him anyway. “Come then. Nuala is here, that much I can feel.”  

They’re in what Loki knew to be the palace courtyard, having held its image in his mind in bringing them here but that he no longer recognizes – its greenery half dead, its streams run dry. Beyond the palace walls he can see buildings in half ruin. “Nuada, what exactly has befallen Alfheimr? Surely the humans have not done this.”

Nuada shakes his head. “I exiled myself from this realm in disgust at my father’s unwillingness to counter the humans as they encroached on us, and he let things go further to waste than I could have imagined. Nor could he properly face… what other forces seek to see us bent under their will.”

“Other forces,” Loki repeats, raising one eyebrow. They’ve begun moving towards the palace, hurried. “Dark elves,” Nuada says, his tone strange.

“King Malekith?”

“My uncle.”

Loki makes a short, scoffing sound, because as if such a so-called bond should mean anything. What he says is, “I didn’t know the tensions between Alfheimr and Svartalfheimr were so severe.”

“Sheltered Asgard has little idea,” Nuada shrugs, quickening his stride as the palace doors rise before them, manned by dark-clad guards who but widen their eyes at the sight of the two of them. “Where is Nuala?” Nuada demands, moving past them swifter than they can get the doors open, Loki precisely at his side. A harried guard hurries to keep up with them. “Within, my lord, and well; King Malekith only – ”

“Malekith was _here_?” Nuada snaps, loud. He shoves open the doors to what is clearly a throne room and storms in to where his pale sister looks up, taken aback, mid-pace in front of the elaborate throne set. “Nuada!” she cries, and makes as if to come to him but then halts, hands drawing back, and stares from Loki to him, back at Loki, plainly confused, and Loki tilts his chin back every so slightly with the inclination of his horns, red eyes on her; and she looks at Nuada again. “You felt it, then?”

“You need ask? What was he doing here, what did he want?”

“He did but threaten; it was you he sought.”

“And so struck her to bring you here,” Loki says, taking a step forward. They both turn to him, Nuada grimacing. “I’m sorry – Prince Loki?” Nuala says. Loki bows slightly. “Lady Nuala,” he nods, before turning back to Nuada. “What is this?” he snaps. “What have you been doing on Asgard while Alfheimr is in this state?”

“You know very well what,” Nuada says, low. Loki lets out a mirthless laugh. “Really, I don’t. You speak such grand words, prince, _crown prince_ – or ought I say King? Balor is slain at your hands and you leave the throne of your realm cold, while – ”

“Not near as cold as the throne of Jotunheimr, I think,” Nuada cuts him off. “That isn’t the same,” Loki grits out, and Nuada shakes his head. “But it _is_ , Loki, very much so, and I had to make you see that. Damn you, don’t you understand that I need you, and that we must do this together?”

“Do what, exactly? Rescue Alfheimr? So, you need me, is that why you stayed on in Asgard? You know, you could have just asked for my help rather than go to all the trouble – ”

“Loki,” Nuada cuts him off, angry, warningly, again. Loki draws his mouth into a thin line, glaring, fingers curling into palms held carefully at his sides. Nuada makes as if to speak, then turns his head slowly to look at Nuala, who’s retreated discreetly into the farthest of the three thrones, then at the guards, huddled meekly against the door. He exhales slowly and closes his eyes. “I know not what to say anymore that will unfreeze your thoughts to the idea that another may truly care for you as I do,” he whispers. Loki continues to stare at him, unflinching, though his mouth maybe wavers a little. Nuada opens his eyes and exhales again. “And no, it’s not Alfheimr or Jotunheimr that must be saved, but the nine realms. But that is not why _I_ need you.”

Loki’s chest begins to pulsate, soft but rapid and one hand inches for Nuada’s, too late as Nuada turns away and heads for the door. And Loki has a mind for several different courses of action at that point, but fights them all down but for to stride swiftly after Nuada, silently take his hand and follow him out.

 


End file.
